Complaints & compliments

Your feedback is important to us

Our customers are at the heart of everything we do. We want to hear your ideas and suggestions, so we can give you the best possible service.

Please let us know if you think our service has been poor, but don’t forget to tell us about times when our service has been good too. Your feedback will help us to keep getting things right and point to areas where we need to improve.

Easy Read – If you prefer the Easy Read version of how to complain to Ability Housing then click Easy Read Complaint Leaflet.

The easiest and best way to contact us with your complaint or compliment is by talking to your Support Worker or Housing Services Officer.

Our Commitment to You: Complaint Handling & Service Improvement

We are pleased to share that our complaint handling services fully comply with the Housing Ombudsman’s standards. However, compliance is just our starting point, we continuously work on new improvements to make our service even better, fairer, and more effective for you.

Here is a summary of how we manage your feedback and the steps we are taking to improve:

  • We make it easy to complain: You can tell us you are unhappy in any way—by talking to us face-to-face, calling us, writing a letter, or using our website. You do not even have to use the word “complaint” for us to help you.
  • We listen and learn: We use a clear two-stage process to fix problems quickly. We do not look at complaints as a bad thing; they help us learn how to make our services better for everyone.
  • We treat everyone fairly: Our staff are trained to help you, and we can make changes to suit your personal needs or disabilities. You are also welcome to have a friend or representative speak for you.
  • We report our progress: Every month, we show reports about our complaints to our Senior Managers and our Board. We also publish a big report on our website every year so you can see exactly how we are doing.

How We Are Raising Our Standards

To ensure we are always improving our customer service, here is what we have been working on behind the scenes:

  • Policy updates: We have completed a full review of both our Complaints Policy and our Compensation Policy. Once these have received final approval, we look forward to sharing the updated versions with you.
  • Our Complaints Panel Group: This dedicated staff group has now been running for a year. They meet every three months to look closely at how we handle cases, ensuring we are actively learning from our mistakes.
  • Direct Board oversight: The lead of our complaints group meets every three months with the Board member responsible for complaints (our MRC). This keeps our top leadership directly informed about what needs to improve.
  • Clearer survey feedback: When we do our annual Tenant Satisfaction Measures (TSM) survey, we tell everyone exactly how to log an official complaint if they wish to. We have now expanded this across all customer surveys throughout the organisation.
  • Sharing information openly: We don’t just place our policies on the website. We actively publish regular complaint updates and helpful guidance in our customer newsletters.
  • Giving staff the right tools: We provide our complaint handlers with clear, plain-language letter templates. This ensures our written communication with you is straightforward, easy to understand, and contains all the right details.
  • Investing in our team: We invest in complaint handling training for our staff. This gives them the skills and knowledge they need to investigate problems fairly, empathetically, and find the right solutions for you.

Find out more: To see more details on how we are performing, please look at our full Annual Complaints Performance Report and Self-Assessment below.

Complaints performance report – 2024-25

Complaints Self-Assessment Criteria-2024-2025.pdf (340k)

You could also:

  • send an email to complaints@ability-housing.co.uk
  • write to: Complaints, Ability Housing Association, The Coach House, Gresham Road, Staines, TW18 2AE, or
  • complete the online form below.

Complaints and compliments form

Complaints policy and procedure.

Complaints performance and service improvement report 2024/-25

Complaints performance and service improvement report 2023-24